Densho Digital Archive - Bob Santos Interview III (denshovh-sbob

<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Okay. So this next part, 'cause I'm gonna, your life keeps changing.

BS: Yeah.

TI: And in '94, up to this point you're the activist, you're doing all these things for the community. In '94 you become the regional director of HUD, an organization that you've worked with in the past and you've done things, but they were always kind of the establishment, the government.

BS: Right.

TI: And now you're asked to join that side. So talk about, talk about that and why...

BS: We marched on HUD, too, remember I told you that? Early '70s.

TI: Yeah, you marched on HUD, and now all of a sudden they're asking you to be, to come on that side. I wanted... go ahead.

BS: I ran for office in 1985, I think. Do you remember that?

TI: You're right. I do. Go ahead and talk about that.

BS: I ran for office, and I lost. I ran for office three times. I have a perfect record. I lost all, every, each time. But in that race for county council was, Ruby Chow was there, right, and I wanted to run against her. I wanted to beat her badly. I just, her and I just could not get along. And Ron Sims also was in that race, and I didn't care about running against Ron. I just wanted to run against Ruby. So I declared to run, and about that time Ruby decided she didn't want to, I don't think she wanted to campaign against Ron and myself, so she retired and Cheryl took her place. Instead of backing out, I kept my campaign going, and I lost, lost to Ron Sims. So I was out of, so I'm out of a job, and so the PDA, so I left InterIm and InterIm started up the PDA, so PDA had the executive position open, so I applied for the PDA executive, their director position and was interviewed, and the board was split. People like Tomio thought we should have someone that was more business oriented. We didn't need any more activism. And I sort of lobbied my way in to get that one vote that I needed. And Tomio, we're okay with that. We talk about that all the time. But it was the same time that Metro property at Eighth and Dearborn was surplus, so I was hired and my job was really to see if we could acquire that property at a deep discount. So I worked out a deal. I worked out a deal with Metro. I said, "Since you have your maintenance facility, Metro maintenance facility in our property and it's been a negative impact, you bring nothing positive to the International District, when you surplus it we in the International District, through the PDA, should have first opportunity to apply for the, to buy the property before you send it out to public bid." Metro said fine. "We understand that. We haven't been a good neighbor. One of the problems, though, is that the federal government, through the Department of Transportation, lent us the money, two thirds of the money to purchase that property in 1974, so you'd have to talk to them to see what they're willing to do." So I met with a guy named Terry Ebersol. He was regional administrator for UMTA, Urban Mass Transit Authority, and they're the ones that had the reversionary rights of the property. So I went to Terry. We had lunch at the Four Seas. "Terry, the DOT really need the 1.7 million dollars that the property was appraised at." It was sixty-four thousand six hundred square feet of property divided by Eighth Avenue, two half blocks. He says, "Bob, you know how that, you know how the government works. We have to get, we have to either get the money or get it off our books." So boom. Called Bill Nishimura. I said -- he was regional administrator for HUD -- I said, "Bill, would you be willing to come to a meeting with Terry Ebersol with Department of Transportation?" Sure. "Sure, Bob." And Bill was good. He always... I called Sue Taoka, who was working then with Mayor Norm Rice. She was like one of the deputies up there. I said, "Sue, why don't come to this meeting?"

And so we met, and in the meantime I'm talking to a guy named Jim Gonzoles, he was the Washington State coordinator for Brock Adams' office. I knew Jim. I talked to Rita Jean Butterworth, who was the state coordinator of Slade Gorton's senatorial office. I knew Jean. You know how we had to go to all these receptions, and that's a part of our life. We meet people. And every time I met these aides I'd take 'em to lunch. I could never take the senator to lunch, but I could take an aide to lunch, right? They're always willing to find out what's going on. Took down, talked to them, and I said, "I'm meeting with these government officials and I want your support," and I told 'em what we wanted to do. We wanted to acquire the piece of property at Eighth and Dearborn, to build an intergenerational, multicultural, multilingual facility to serve the elderly, low income elderly, families, families with children. And they loved the concept. They said, okay, we'd support that. Let's, I'll call the boss and see if we can support that. So I have these, all these people in the room, so I looked at Terry Ebersol. I said, "Terry, remember our conversation? If you could get it off your books or I get the money? Would you be willing to transfer the interest of your department, the interest of your department over to another federal agency just to get it off your books?" He said yes. "Bill, would you be willing to accept it and immediately transfer it over to the city as a block grant?" HUD, right? A regular community development block grant, and get it over to the city. "And Sue, would Norm be willing to allocate that same parcel of land to us as a block grant?" Right? And, of course, everybody says, "We do it all the time." So we get two thirds of the property. It actually happened with the help of the two senators we got that two thirds of the property transferred through, to us at no cost. Now I had to lobby the county, the Metro council for their one third of the property, which was at that point, what, seven hundred thousand or so. They wanted fair market value and a whole bunch of lobbying went on, and I met with all of them, and I got them to sell their piece of the land to me at a hundred and fifty thousand. Not to me, to PDA. So we got 1.7 million dollar piece of property for one fifty thousand, hundred and fifty thousand.